It's Dangerous To Go Alone
by caramelEclairs
Summary: [Loz 1 Adaptation] A story told a hundred times before: The princess held prisoner, the boy desperately seeking out a way to save her, and the rogue who covets a holy relic safeguarded for millennia.


This has probably been done a hundred times before, but I figure it can't hurt to add my own to the lot. I'd call this a novelization, but with how lacking in story the original Legend of Zelda is, there's nothing beyond the basic storyline to go on. So at best I'll call this an adaptation and hope that, if nothing else, it will entertain people.

Please enjoy!

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><p>Years later, when all was said and done and she finally had a moment of peace, Zelda would realize her mother had known this was coming. In the days leading up to it, her mother had often touched her hair as she hadn't since she was a small child, the long remorseful looks the Queen would give her as they spoke, how her mother would interrupt her lessons and ask if she wished to have lunch together. It should have been a sign to the Princess.<p>

Zelda had not cared at the time. What was the point of learning stories of the long dead when they all knew her only purpose in the grand scheme of things was to find a good match? When her mother sought out a husband who would treat her daughter well and who, when presented with Hyrule's meager lands as her dowry, would treat what few citizens they had left just as well? No, if her mother gave her an excuse to abandon her lessons if only for a few hours, Zelda would endure it. Even if she could never find what, exactly, she could talk to her mother about. It was better than listening to Impa drone on about history and legends that no longer mattered.

The image of golden hair and fine white clothing covered in red still seemed unnatural, like Zelda was walking through a strange dream and the gnarled fingers around her wrist like a vice would wake her soon. She would forget this dream in the first rays of dawn as she always did and the day would go on as normal. Yes, her mother would give her a stern look at breakfast while Impa chastised her about wanting to sleep past dawn and then her mother would speak of the trade agreement with Holodrum to supplement their ever-failing harvests. How she should be just a little kinder to their Prince and give him a chance even if she thought his hair was ridiculous and his manner irritating.

Her mind was brought back to reality as she tripped over her ruined him. Maybe this was why her mother always wore boots and her dresses fell to just above the ground. Zelda's fashionable dress dragged on the floor and she'd had to kick off the heels she had begged for when Impa had dragged her from the throne room.

She had not even had a chance to say a word to her mother.

Impa pulled Zelda's hand forward when they reached their destination: a tower connected to her mother's office via a small bridge. The old woman pressed it to the rune on the wall and urged Zelda to sing. They are coming! She needs to sing. Yet it was like her voice had fled and though she tried, not even the smallest of sounds could escape the young princess. Not even the lullaby she had heard from both her mother and Impa since she had been in the cradle.

All Zelda could think of was how, just a few hours ago, she had brought up a tray containing her mother's lunch from the kitchens and all Zelda had done was complain. She had stitchwork she wanted to finish, but she had claimed instead she was trying to catch up on her studies. Why couldn't the maids or Impa have brought her mother lunch? Why did she always make Zelda do it?

Her mother had only given her a long smile and said when she had children of her own and little time for them she would understand.

The sound of stone grinding aside brought Zelda back to the present and Impa drew her forward. In an instant the chamber was cast into darkness while her nanny took a lantern off the wall and lit it.

"Hurry, Zelda. Stop daydreaming and hurry!" Her wrist was seized again and Zelda focused on not falling headfirst down the stairs. The only way into this tower was through her mother's office, but it was not what was at the top that people sought. No, it was down below, buried under layers and layers of carvings and runes and spellsong. Layers Zelda's mother had renewed every single day at dawn and dusk, when supposedly the veil between worlds was thinnest and magic flowed at its strongest.

Music reached Zelda's ears as Impa opened another passage. Golden light poured out as what was seemingly an innocuous part of the wall disappeared as if it never existed. The woman pulled her forward again and shut the passageway behind them.

For all the legends she had been taught growing up, Zelda should have known this would one day be inevitable. As small as Hyrule was, as poor as it was, it was still a deeply religious country, a highly superstitious one. This was a land where the people still worshipped the Golden Triumverate, whose royal family still claimed to be descended from a Goddess instead of being simple nobility. A royal family who, rumor had it, protected a divine relic capable of giving people anything they wish for.

A rumor that Zelda knew was all too true, even if their meager citizenry scoffed at the notion and she herself doubted its power. It could not grant wishes as the rumors suggested, but Zelda had stood with her mother as she divined the future often enough. She had never been able to hear it as her mother claimed she could, but the way the relic glowed, lighting her mother up from within as if she were the very Goddess of Light whose blood was rumored to flow through their veins, made her believe it had at least a little magic in it. Yet it also proved how untrue the legends were in her mind. If the legends often spoke of there being three parts of the Triforce then why did the her mother hold only one piece?

For something so holy, the chamber it resided in was simple. Water poured from the walls through a mechanism Zelda had never really paid attention to the explanation of no matter how often Impa tried. The splash of it into the pool her mother blessed every morning and evening created music, the song Zelda had had engraved into her heart and mind and soul from the day her parents knew of her impending birth. Flowering vines crawled up the walls where water did not fall and a path from the entrance led to the dais on which the Triforce span gracefully in midair, the only source of light needed for this room.

Was the drumming in her ears her own heart or the invaders breaking through the passage at the top of the tower and coming thundering down to do to them what they had no doubt done to her mother?

Impa pulled her forward again, past the Triforce as it continued to spin like the world, like its caretaker had not just been killed and all was still well with the world. Her mother's orders, no doubt. She had always said Impa's top priority should be Zelda's safety beyond even that of the Triforce or her own. Impa, who had been more of a mother to Zelda than her own. More of a mother than the one she would never see again.

"Go girl! Quickly!" Impa snapped in that tone she used whenever Zelda would slouch during her lessons. Zelda looked forward to see another dark passage before her. Of course. An escape route from here. Her mother would not have them essentially be trapped in this chamber, would she? Her mother would...

Her mother would want her to...

"What about you?" It didn't even occur to Zelda the blood on her hands was not even her own. No, she was unscathed. Her feet were sore and no doubt bleeding from the mad dash, but otherwise she was unscathed. The various aches and pains did not even occur to her in that moment.

"I will keep them from coming after you for as long as possible. Likely they are only after the Triforce and will not come after you. Go! Do not hesitate!"

Zelda's heart froze in her chest. In her mind's eye she could see what would happen as the first loud pound came on the wall sealing them in here. Impa was not as spry as she used to be. She was healthier and more nimble and capable than most even in their prime. Zelda had grown up seeing the woman disarm every member of their meager guard, had learned to use both sword and bow at her hands, had seen her mother and her spar one another as if they truly were locked in battle and not merely practicing.

But the years were finally catching up to Impa and Zelda could see it in the way her back stooped and how the woman had almost missed when she had thrown daggers at the monsters who invaded the throne room. If Impa was left here, then Zelda would not see her again. She already would not see her mother, who she barely even knew, but Impa? Impa who had chased away nightmares she couldn't remember. Impa who would chastise her for sneaking away from lessons. Impa who had gifted her with shoes her mother deemed impractical and a waste and would bring her thread and fabric when it became clear just how different her personal interests were from her mother's. Impa, whose gnarled hands had taken the time to learn complicated hairstyles Zelda could not do herself.

"Impa, it's dark down there," she said quietly, her voice so even she swore it was her mother speaking through her, "Please, at least give me the lantern to light my way? I'm frightened."

Impa looked ready to hit her and Zelda did not blame her. She was acting so much like a child, nothing like the Princesses and Queens before her. The ones who had looked bravely in the face of evil incarnate and been nothing but pictures of grace and wisdom, forever sure the Goddesses would smile down on them and bring them victory. Impa handed her the lantern and Zelda took her order not to hesitate to heart.

She grabbed Impa's wrist with her other hand and turned, flinging her into the passage. With a smack to the switch beside it, it began to close. If Impa had been even a few years younger or Zelda a moment too late, she knew her nanny would have overpowered her and it would be her splayed on the ground struggling to stand as the passage ground shut.

And Impa had thought she didn't pay attention in _all_ her lessons. If the situation weren't so dire, Zelda might have felt a bit of pride at catching her so off guard.

"Zelda!"

"I'm sorry, Impa! I... I can't lose you, too!"

"Zelda, you can't! Open up this passage right now!" Impa demanded, finally getting to her feet and reaching through the gap for her. Zelda grabbed it and held tight when the cracking outside the wall got louder.

"It's me they want." Her voice shook, breaking any hope she had of being anything like her ancestors. "If I... If I let them take me, then you will be able to live. No one else will have to die if it's just Mother and myself, right? Hyrule would be absorbed into the kingdom of whoever I wed anyway. No one else will... no one else will have to die."

"Child, no! You are too young! You cannot let yourself be taken! You cannot go where I cannot follow you anymore!"

It was the most painful thing in the world when the gap became too small and she had to let go of Impa's hand.

"Then find someone!" Zelda snapped as it shut fully, leaning her head against it, hands splayed there as if she could will the lantern through the wall. Why hadn't she thought to flind it in after her?

She shrieked as someone pounded on the barricaded door, her hands shaking in a way they never had reason to before. She didn't want to die. She didn't. Even if she would see her grandparents and mother and father again, she didn't. For a wild second she wished she had simply dragged Impa with her into the passage, but she had acted on impulse, unthinking of the consequences. All that mattered was she would not lose anyone else dear to her on this day.

"Find anyone!" she cried, desperation making her speak now, "There's stories about heroes who save Hyrule, right? Perhaps luck will be on my side and you will find one who is capable."

"Those are only stories! Please! Come with me! Open the door!"

"I can't!" Zelda shouted, her voice cracking, "You know I can't."

There was a loud crashing outside and the wall and Zelda turned, deaf to Impa's cries. Her eyes stayed on the Triforce for a long moment as the pounding cracked the wall further. These men had killed her mother, taken her from her, and for what? This golden bobble that had done nothing to protect their Kingdom like it should? This thing her mother had given her life to guard even when it could not save her father?

One story she had paid attention to during her lessons was about a land so very close yet so very different from Hyrule, a reflection on the other side of the mirror or, more accurately, a reflection in water, distorted. The same foundation but unique in its own way with its own heroes and legends and history. It had a golden relic of its own. Like in Hyrule, people warred for it, betrayed one another for it, torn up the land for it. This land had ultimately destroyed their Gift from the Goddesses for the good of all.

If the people in that other world could manage it, then could she? These beasts took her mother from her. Why let them have the thing they no doubt came for? Her mother's death would only be in vain if they got their hands on it.

Zelda was already on the dais raising the lantern when the wall began to give out in a shower of stone and water. The dust made it hard to breathe, but she did not care. She did not have time to care. Impa had told her not to hesitate.

With a cry to give her courage, she swung the lantern against the great golden triangle. There was a flash of light so blinding it nearly burned, or was that the flame in the shattering lantern burning her hands?

That didn't matter. Zelda kept hitting it, willing this _thing_ to be broken apart and cast aside. If it was responsible for so much bloodshed, for her mother's death, then she will do away with it! If it is gone, then surely this will stop! No one else will be hurt! Cast it away! Cast it away so that it would never be found again! Never let anyone else touch it! Do whatever was necessary so it may never be found again!

The Triforce pulsed with each hit. Zelda cried out to drown out the sound of the beasts clawing through the wall to get at her, the shouts of Impa trapped on the other side. Spots danced before her eyes and something in her head screamed she needed to stop. She must stop or else all would be lost, but Zelda no longer cared. She had already lost all. What more could possibly be taken from her?

With one final cry, something about the triangle gave. First it caved inward and Zelda stumbled. Then it burst outward, exploding in a flourish of light. An angry roar sounded through the room as the force of it slammed Zelda against the wall and she sank down, her head pounding and her heart stuttering in her chest. Darkness overtook the chamber, water soaked into her now-ruined dress. Good. It was gone.

Her head swam as heavy steps approached her. Creatures were speaking in the entrance to the chamber and she could not help but to look up as her vision dimmed. Her stomach churned from how each heavy footfall made her head throb.

The last thing she saw was the outline of someone who was neither man nor beast with angry red eyes glaring down at her.

"Child, what have you done?"

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><p>1. Hope you enjoyed Zelda, we won't be revisiting her for a long while. Next chapter we will focus entirely on Link.<br>I can promise she'll be back before chapter ten.

2. This is entirely the fault of my friend Jamie and my never-ending quest for her tears and sorrow.

3. I couldn't resist the callback to Link Between Worlds.

4. Hope y'all enjoyed this!


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